Marc Gasol Thought Former Memphis Grizzlies Head Coach David Fizdale Was a ‘Phony’

Details surrounding the relationship between the All-Star center and the Memphis Grizzlies’ former head coach continue to trickle out in the aftermath of the latter’s firing. We know Gasol complained about being benched during the second half of Memphis’ Sunday loss to the Brooklyn Nets. We know the pair hadn’t really been speaking for the past 10 months.

And now, according to Bleacher Report’s Ken Berger, we know that Gasol, despite not playing an active role in Fizdale’s dismissal, considered the clipboard carrier a phony:

“Gasol had been chafing for a long time,” a person familiar with the player’s thinking told B/R. “He had two pretty good coaches in Dave and Lionel, and he felt this guy was a little bit of a [phony].”

To be clear, Gasol never asked the team to fire Fizdale or played any role in his demise, other than a circumstantial one, sources said. And the circumstances had gotten pretty bad.

“It got really nasty,” the person familiar with the team dynamics said. “It wasn’t this week, and it wasn’t just Gasol. This has been going on overlapping from last year, too.”

This tracks with everything else we’ve been hearing over the past week: Gasol didn’t like Fizdale, but he isn’t the one directly responsible for his exit.

And yet, even now, it remains unclear why Gasol actually didn’t like Fizdale. Like, what does phony mean? That Fizdale’s rah-rah schtick came off as superficial? A facade? Or was Gasol, perhaps, just longing for the days of Fizdale’s predecessors, Lionel Hollins and Dave Joerger, who never had him standing behind the arc and jacking threes?

More details will be provided about this eventually, I’m sure. Behind-the-scenes stuff always trickles out for a while after a major shakeup. For now, we just know that the relationship between Gasol and Fizdale was every bit as toxic as it’s been made out to be—bad enough for the Grizzlies to apparently choose one over the other, without consulting either of them.